Diversity experienced in the working environment can make it hard for people to communicate and agree on disparities effectively. Communication theory describes the way of talking about and examining key processes and events that constitute actual interaction. The sender encodes a message transmitted to the recipient who decodes it and is expected to give feedback upon receiving the message. The fundamental goal of communication is to exchange information to attain a mutual understanding. Emotional barriers may cause an individual to react in a way that will surprise many and thus hinder effective communication. This essay will analyze workplace events that happened while working in organization X. The CEO incompetently addressed the claims of the workers’ struggle presented to him. This essay will show how theories of justice, virtue ethics, and communication can facilitate decision-making in a workplace.
Case Scenario
Working in organization X for six months to help the COVID-19 patients proved to be one of the challenging situations. I was chosen as the leader of the group to champion the rights of the other employees within the organization. The employees faced challenges in trying to help the sick as the employment conditions were poor. We had a small number of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect us from the disease, and thus, we were paused with the risk of getting infected. In the room where we were assigned to work, the ratio of the patients to ourselves was unreasonable; we were extremely overwhelmed by the number of patients who visited the facility. The working conditions were highly unbearable for the entire workgroup.
I was aware that funds had been sent to the institutions to purchase the PPEs. Some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had made some donations of the PPEs, and all were kept in the store. Circulating rumors were that the organization had sold some of the PPEs to a neighboring facility. I decided to approach the institution’s executive board so that our complaints would be heard. Meeting the organization’s CEO in the office was futile; he was regularly absent, and his secretary often claimed that he was busy and I could book an appointment. One day I accidentally met him in the institution’s corridors; I requested him to stop and presented the employees’ complaints to him. After I completed presenting the claims, he did not respond; he only clicked and walked away.
Application of Theories
There should be fair to all citizens in their access to fundamental rights. Thus, in the workplace, the theory of justice focuses on the employees encompassing their social responsibility of ensuring that the workplace is conducive for the workers (Dahanayake et al., 2018). Employees are human beings who should be accorded a clean working environment with necessary resources. Organizational justice focuses on employee insight of fairness in the workplace based on the distribution of resources, dissemination, and interaction. The resolution to approach the executive management was based on my assumption that there was no workforce justice. Denying the workforce PPEs yet they were available and understaffing the workers, yet there were resources to employ more workers was not justice. I wanted to use my leadership position to ensure fairness to the people.
Virtue ethics mainly focuses on the morality and honesty encompassed within an individual. A virtual person practices good habits such as honesty and transparency (Papouli, 2018). Employees with morals and virtues will apply them daily or frequently in their workplace. I was transparent in explaining the claims to the CEO about the current state of affairs in organization X. Starting with the CEO; he displayed his unvirtuous character in handling my complaints. The CEO was not transparent to respond to the claims that the PPEs were available yet were not being given to the workers. Deontology stresses that it is the responsibility of people to behave in a specific acceptable manner. There was no honesty in responding to the allegations that funds were available to buy PPEs; he walked away.
Communication theory entails people’s interaction and how they form and maintain impressions of the individuals they interact with within the organization. The interaction adaption and emotional contagion theories are subtypes of communication theory that suggest that people adapt to the individuals during the interaction process (Burgoon, Dunbar and Giles, 2017). These theories help an individual accurately mirror the people they are interrelating with in an organization. The response provided by the CEO makes one find it hard to adapt to the working environment; some may often choose to resign so that the burden of work stress may be taken away from them. Feedback is one of the most important things in a conversation, and it shows how a person has reacted to the message. The CEO’s feedback that entailed clicking and walking away was inappropriate. He was supposed to listen and respond appropriately to the claims made.
Findings and Reflections
The theories of justice and virtue can be essential to assessing the decision to make in a scenario. Through the theory of justice, there is an understanding that employees in organization X are entitled to fair working conditions like any other citizen. Based on the virtue theory, people should practice transparency and honesty in their professional duty. The approach focuses on moral reasoning and aims at building individuals into better ones (Hoipkemier, 2018). The limitation of the approach is not essentially helpful when one encounters a dilemma case. What an individual considers morally upright may be subjective and change with time.
On the other hand, justice theory may have its advantages and limitations. The primary benefit of the approach is that it allows for individual freedom and ensures equitable distribution of resources (Rawls, 2020). A well-governed society considers justice for all citizens regardless of their race, gender, sex, religion, or age. Through this theory, the weak and less privileged in society can thus have access to resources, thus ensuring that their rights are not violated. When some organizations apply the approach to ensure equal distribution of resources, it may reduce people’s incentives to work hard.
Reference List
Burgoon, J., Dunbar, N. and Giles, H. (2017)Interaction coordination and adaptation interaction coordination and adaptation. [online]
Dahanayake, P. et al. (2018). Justice and fairness in the workplace: a trajectory for managing diversity: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 37(5), pp.470–490.
Hoipkemier, M. (2018). ‘Justice, Not happiness: Aristotle on the common good’, Polity, 50(4), pp.547–574.
Papouli, E. (2018). ‘Aristotle’s virtue ethics as a conceptual framework for the study and practice of social work in modern times’, European Journal of Social Work, 22(6), pp.1–14.
Rawls, J., 2020. A theory of justice. In A theory of justice. Harvard university press.